This invention relates generally to liquid soap preparations, and more particularly to such a preparation suitable for use as a surgical scrub soap.
As surgeons, and others in the medical profession, are aware, two types of bacteria, namely, Staphyllococcus aureus (ordinarily referred to as staph) and Pseudomonas aerogenosa, are present in all hospitals and potentially harmful to hospital patients, particularly when such patients are undergoing surgery. To minimize the threat of these bacteria insofar as humanly possible, surgeons carefully "scrub up" prior to operating on a patient, using a germicidal soap to kill harmful bacteria on their hands and forearms. Not many germicidal agents suitable for use in appropriate quantities in scrub soaps, however, kill both staph and pseudomonas bacteria, which means that conventional scrub soaps offer less than a complete solution to the problem. While silver nitrate is known to be a standard germ-killing agent, its use for that purpose in surgical scrub soaps has not proven very satisfactory. For one thing, where silver nitrate is present in nontoxic levels in such soaps, it has been found completely ineffective to kill bacteria. Furthermore, silver nitrate, because of its high density, settles out of liquid suspensions in relatively short periods (something like a week, on the average), so is completely unsatisfactory for use in liquid scrub soaps.
Hexachlorophene, another known germicidal agent is impermissible as a scrub soap ingredient in this country, having been banned for use (without a prescription) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because of possibe carcinogenicity.
For the reasons given above, and others, no completely versatile surgical scrub soap capable of killing both staph and pseudomonas bacteria, while remaining nontoxic to humans and animals, has yet, to our knowledge, been provided. Moreover, scrub soaps heretofore available to surgeons have often been irritating to the skin (allergenic), nonbiodegradable, and of such type as to leave a residue that does not rinse clean, or to have possessed one or two of those three drawbacks.